I Just Watched...

[Detective Jim McLeod]

The Seduction Of A Nerd (1970) Tubi-1/10

A nebbish toy maker (Wally Cox) is wanted by toy company executives (Julie Newmar, Victor Buono) to work for them.

When I saw the trio of actors in this, I just had to see it. I wasn't expecting much but it was worse than I thought. The original title was Up Your Teddy Bear. The Wally Cox character is obsessed with following beautiful women so the execs use sexy women to get him to sign up with their company. Newmar is one of the sexiest women who ever lived but we don't see enough her, though she is seen in a bikini. The comedy is not funny, even with skilled performers like Cox and Buono. Buono is seen in drag, I wonder if the producers saw Divine in Mondo Trasho (1969)?

[Cinemaspeak59]

How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968) is similar to Pillow Talk from1959. There’s mistaken identity, deception, the smooth bachelor, the scorned lover and, in an acknowledgment of the times, speeches about women’s rights. It’s quite funny, with a pleasing production design, and the cast of Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Betty Field and Jack Albertson is very good.

[BagelOnAPlate]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Some of the twists were predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I had no idea that Mary Steenburgen played three roles in the movie. I knew that she played Julie Ross and the actress hired to "replace" her, but I was surprised to see that she also played Julie's sister. She rocked the hat and the fur coat in that role!
I'm pretty sure that someone else's voice was dubbed in for the early New Years Eve scene where she played Julie in the car with the bag of money.
The movie was directed by Athur Penn, who also directed The Miracle Worker and Bonnie and Clyde.

I also watched Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time recently on Watch TCM. I had no idea that she had been married to Malcolm McDowell, her co-star in that movie. Malcolm McDowell was endearing in the role of H.G. Wells in Time After Time, but I couldn't get his very disturbing work in A Clockwork Orange out of my mind completely when watching Time After Time.

Glad you enjoyed DEAD OF WINTER, Bagel. I do like the way the script (or perhaps it was Mary's concept) doesn't really make the main actress character a necessarily sympathetic figure. She is depicted as coldly ambitious and proud, somewhat of a shrew to her husband and kid brother, fiercely competitive, not the most likeable of women and someone who ultimately will make a very dumb and naive decision in order to further her career.

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

[Allhallowsday]

THE BOOK CLUB (2018) If you thought 80 FOR BRADY was boring, this one is insufferable. My best friend loved it.

[CinemaInternational]

About a week ago, I went searching online for films rarely seen these days: Fox titles from the early 1930s, before the studio became known as 20th Century Fox, and it was just Fox film. I saw quite a few of these titles, around 50 of them, and it should be noted that the best ones of the bunch were the ones with Janet Gaynor (especially the charming 1933 film Adorable) and Joan Bennett (1932's The Trial of Vivienne Ware is remarkably speedy). Some of the prints of these films were in wretched shape though, and it's clear to see that Fox didn't know what to do with Spencer Tracy as they kept putting him in one dull film after another. Still a fascinating voyage through rare films.

[Bronxgirl48]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Some of the twists were predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I had no idea that Mary Steenburgen played three roles in the movie. I knew that she played Julie Ross and the actress hired to "replace" her, but I was surprised to see that she also played Julie's sister. She rocked the hat and the fur coat in that role!
I'm pretty sure that someone else's voice was dubbed in for the early New Years Eve scene where she played Julie in the car with the bag of money.
The movie was directed by Athur Penn, who also directed The Miracle Worker and Bonnie and Clyde.

I also watched Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time recently on Watch TCM. I had no idea that she had been married to Malcolm McDowell, her co-star in that movie. Malcolm McDowell was endearing in the role of H.G. Wells in Time After Time, but I couldn't get his very disturbing work in A Clockwork Orange out of my mind completely when watching Time After Time.

Glad you enjoyed DEAD OF WINTER, Bagel. I do like the way the script (or perhaps it was Mary's concept) doesn't really make the main actress character a necessarily sympathetic figure. She is depicted as coldly ambitious and proud, somewhat of a shrew to her husband and kid brother, fiercely competitive, not the most likeable of women and someone who ultimately will make a very dumb and naive decision in order to further her career.

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

I always thought (for some reason) gas stations did things like that in the 1950's.

About the hubby's broken leg, I don't recall any explanation. Maybe (like Jimmy Stewart in REAR WIINDOW) he was careless during a photo shoot...

[txfilmfan]

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

I always thought (for some reason) gas stations did things like that in the 1950's.

About the hubby's broken leg, I don't recall any explanation. Maybe (like Jimmy Stewart in REAR WIINDOW) he was careless during a photo shoot...

Gas stations were still giving out promotional items as late as the 1980s. I had a few drinking glasses from Mobil, back in the 1980s. That kind of stuff disappeared when gas stations morphed into convenience stores (or in the case of Bucee's, small supermarkets/delis/restaurants)

[Allhallowsday]

THE SEA HAWK (1940) Just great!

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Skippy (1931) TCM On Demand-7/10

The little son of a doctor makes friends with a poor kid from shantytown.

First time viewing for me and I liked it very much. Jackie Cooper is great in the title role, so much that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The thing I liked most about this was how it shows what it is like to be a kid, especially in the early 1930s but still has some timeless quality. All the children in this film seem like real kids, not actors. It has a bit of Our Gang vibe to it, as in the scenes where the kids put on a show and sell lemonade. Cooper and Donald Haines were both members of Our Gang. Haines played a bully in this, just as he did in the Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930) . Cooper and Haines appeared together in that one too.

Some interesting trivia is that Jackie Cooper was at the Oscar ceremony but fell asleep on Marie Dressler's arm, so he did not hear that he lost to Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. Norman Taurog, the director did win for this. He was Cooper's uncle (by marriage). This became infamous years later when Cooper revealed that Taurog got him to cry by pretending he was going to shoot Jackie's dog. His crying scene here is heartrending.

This movie is a MUST for Jackie Cooper fans or for anyone who likes sentimental comedy/dramas of the early 1930s.

[Cinemaspeak59]

Blind Date (1934) Ann Sothern keeps coming in second to her workaholic boyfriend (Paul Kelly), who wants to grow his garage, called Fixit & Fetchit. When Ann meets a rich playboy (Neil Hamilton), class differences ensue. Who will Ann choose? Someone from her own background, or Mr. Trust-Fund. Both men are portrayed as good people. There are some good laughs. I liked it.

[Masha]

The Grass Is Greener (1960)

An American invades an English country home with the intention of carrying off the lady of the house.

Cary Grant as a house husband! I believe that is all that you should need to know to compel you to watch this movie.

It is a comedy of manners directed by: Stanley Donen. It is of an age and society when gentlemen invited their wife's lover to the country for a weekend. It is filled with gentle humor and witty double-entendres with the audience in on the joke.

Robert Mitchum as the interloper seems to me to be a bit miscast but he presents well.

Deborah Kerr is the wife in question and Jean Simmons rounds out the cast as her friend who is a little minx.

There are no car chases, no explosions except a wife blowing up at her husband and it is quite late in the movie before anyone is shot.

8.6/10

It is available for viewing for free with commercials on: PlutoTV.

[Belle]

"Some Came Running", 1958, Vincente Minnelli. Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Dean Martin. I watched a restored wide-screen version on YouTube and it won't be around long. Minnelli's production design skills are in evidence, particularly in the final, devastating scene. No doubt influenced by "Strangers on a Train", Minnelli adapted his skills from "An American in Paris" to glorious colourful effects - which went on to influence later film-makers, not least our own Australian Baz Luhrmann. Minnelli knew how to use widescreen to great effect, unlike many of his contemporaries who simply could not fill that screen!

Shirley MacLaine is the standout performer in this film.

[TikiSoo]

Last night I watched IMPACT, a 1949 film directed by Arthur Lubin and starring Brian Donlevy. I had been searching for Anna Mae Wong movies I hadn't seen before and this was almost her last appearance. Sadly, she only plays the "maid" and has very little screen time.

It's a pretty interesting crime mystery with Donlevy's spoiled wife played by Helen Walker, who along with her lover, has plotted to kill him. The story has a lot of twists & turns and the husband survives the planned "accident" and the rest of the movie is his attempt to unravel what actually happened.

Along the way home to San Francisco he stays at a war widow's garage as a mechanic, letting us see what a square guy he really is. The widow is played by gorgeous Ella Raines who falls hopelessly in love with him. (she's beautiful, but painfully skinny!)


Back home, a police detective becomes involved in the case, played by Charles Coburn who almost steals the show-

(that's supposedly her lounging robe)
The great charactor actor Coburn has a slight Irish brogue & as usual brings a lighthearted vibe to an otherwise grim story.

All hinges on Su Lin and everyone scrambles to get her testimony at the last minute, clearing Donlevy. The closing credits cite Jason Robards as the Judge, but scrolling back see the Judge is an older man. Apparently, Robards just reads the Judge's last lines off camera, as the actor who plays the Judge never speaks!
Disappointing if you're looking for an Anna Mae Wong performance, but a decent movie carried by the talent of the cast, writing and taut editing. Great poster with NONE of the pictures actually in the movie, haha-


I love Brian Donlevy who always reminds me of Bruce Willis. At one point, the widow's Mother finds out Donlevy's story and says, "It's a lot easier for someone of 50 to see things more clearly than someone who's 25." Really? Donlevy looks more like a 40 year old than a 25 y/o. Just looked it up, despite his smooth wrinkleless face, he was 47-48 when this movie was made.

[Lomm]

Finally got my (now wife...when we started was my fiancee) into another classic. I played it very safe and went with It Happened One Night. She enjoyed it very much. It was the first non-Myrna Loy one we watched, so it opens up more avenues.